Shaleha (Aunor) is a Badjao midwife in Tawi-Tawi. ?Shaleha Sarail hails from a seaborne village in Sitangkai, Tawi-Tawi. The province is a seaweed-producing spot in the southernmost part of the Philippines all the way down the Malaysian and Indonesian archipelagos. Aging and still smarting from three miscarriages in the past, Shaleha agonizes over her failure to bear a child. ?Though an adoptive parent to her nephew, she still feels that her husband Bangas-An (Bembol Roco) desires to be a father. She struggles to cope with the irony of her own infertility amidst the deprivation of her community. To fulfill her husband’s only wish and to be blessed by Allah—in her belief that having a child is a tangible proof of divine grace—Shaleha resolves to find a new partner for her husband. Night and day, she and her husband sail away from their floating village and to nearby island communities in search of a fertile woman. As if by providence, Shaleha finds the girl through friends' recommendations. But on the eve of her husband’s second marriage to Mersila (Lovi Poe), jealousy gnaws and consumes Shaleha. . A saga of island life stuck between the devil of passion and the deep blue sea of tradition.
